Yanshuo

The Thermo conference this year is in Guilin in southern China. I decided to travel one day earlier, to have a bit of time to look around and get used to the time difference. Last time we were in China was about 15 years ago and one of the places we went to was Yanshuo, a town about 65 km south of Guilin and in the middle of the karst landscape. I remember Yanshuo as a quiet village in beautiful surroundings and popular with backpackers. Today, I took the bus to Yanshuo and walked around. It has metamorphosed into a buzzling mass tourism town. Not quite what I had in mind, but I still saw some of the nice landscape and had a very good meal in Yanshuo.

Li river

Wooden rafts waiting for tourists

Li river in Yanshuo

Just outside Yanshuo, rice paddies and vegetable fields

Water buffalo in someone's backyard

Yanshuo from a small hill in town

Yanshuo near the bus station with the small hill I walked up

Lots of good fruit

Busy shopping streets, mostly catering for tourists

Post #100! "Tropical" weekend in The Netherlands

A brief stop-over in The Netherlands on my way to a conference in China. It turned out to be the warmest weekend since 1994 with temperatures over 30 C. And yes, it was hot. On Saturday, Freek and I went for a forest walk from Baarn to Lage Vuursche, with a visit to the former royal palace Paleis Soestdijk, which had an exposition on Escher's travels and his amazing drawings. Escher used to live in the area and apparently got inspiration for his drawings during his daily walk through the local forests. 

Paleis Soestdijk - former royal palace

Pretty beech forest

Blooming heather

We took the train to Zandvoort aan zee in the evening, just when many people were leaving the beach (it must have been incredibly crowded during the day both on Saturday and Sunday), for a nice dinner at a beach restaurant and to watch a beautiful sunset.

Evening on the beach near Zandvoort aan zee - still lots of people on the beach

Patterns in the sea

And a beautiful sunset

On Sunday, Hayfaa and I had a relaxed picnic in Park Oosterbeek watching a kingfischer fly by and fish. He didn't want to stop and pose for the camera, so no photos, unfortunately. And in the evening we went for a swim in the North Sea to round off a very nice weekend.

Treriksrøysa - Goldahytte

Treriksrøysa is the point where Norway, Sweden and Finland meet in a triple point. It is a beautiful location at the edge of a lake with the distinctive Parastinden in the background. Last year we walked to Treriksrøysa as a side trip from Goldahytte; this year we took the ferry from Kilpisjärvi across the lake. From the ferry landing it is 3 km to Treriksrøysa and another 3 km to Goldahytte where we stayed overnight.

Dark thunder clouds threatened to soak us on the way in, but fortunately they never reached us and we had a beautiful walk to the hut. Perfect weather the next day and a very pleasant walk back to the ferry landing.

Goldahytte

Treriksrøysa, with Parastinden in the background to the right.

Amazingly still water. The MS Malla is waiting to ferry us back to Kilpisjärvi.

On the way back from Kilpisjärvi, we stopped in Skibotndalen to check for mushrooms and berries. No luck with cantarelles or porcini mushrooms, but we did pick and eat lots of sweet blueberries and saw a couple of squirrels along the way.

Cute baby squirrel

Evening cycle trip to Nonsbu

Quick mountain bike trip from Tønsvika to Nonsbu on a beautiful evening, on one of the few sunny days this summer in Tromsø. Lots of roots in the forest, but relaxed cycling on the top. Beautiful and fast downhill ride back to the car.

Nice track cycling. Long shadows, it is about 21:00h in the evening.

Nonsbu

Tony cycling into the sunset.

Sunset behind Ringvassøya.

Grey summer weather in Tromsø

The weather in Tromsø this summer has been a bit grey and wet and we have not yet done any longer day or weekend trips. Instead, we have been working on the house, trying to finish one of the rooms upstairs that we have been working on for a while now. It is getting there, slowly.

Putting in the wooden floor.

After the floor is finished we still need to put in all the corner pieces.

We do go out for evening walks and bike trips in the local area though. We found some great mountain bike trails through the local forests and have been out to the neighbouring island Kvaløya for a couple of walks. The first mushrooms are appearing and we are hoping to find some cantarelles soon.

An evening walk from Skulsfjord. Looking towards Vengsøya.

A lonely boat in front of Vengsøya.

Silverweed (Potentilla anserina)

Wood on the beach.

View to Vengsøya again, now from Sørtinden on Kvaløya.

Common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris)

Common butterwort together with chickweed wintergreen (Trientalis europaea)

Sun shining on the Lyngen Alps

Walking down from Sørtinden, with Tromsø and Tromsdalstinden in the distance.

Bergen #9: Gullfjellet-Livarden: from Gullbotn to Haukeland

Finally a day off again after 2 weeks continuous microscopy, and perfect weather for a hike in the mountains. This time I decided to walk up Gullfjell, the highest mountain in the Bergen district. I started from Gullbotn, a 40 minute bus ride east of Bergen, from where a good track leads up the mountain. Once on the ridge you can follow large, 2 m high, cairns that lead the way to the top. This area is a bit further from the city and, probably because it was a week day, I only met a handful of people along my route. It is a beautiful area, higher and more alpine than the local hills around Bergen, with still quite a bit of snow around. The golden plovers are nesting and I saw lots of cloudberry leaves on the ridge to Livarden. Once down from the mountain in Haukeland I missed the hourly bus by 5 minutes and with the long wait in addition to more than an hour travelling by bus-tram-bus it was quite late before I got home, but the walk was absolutely worth it.

I had forgotten to put my battery back in my camera after charging it the night before, so these photos are taken from my cheap mobile phone to give at least some impression of the area. 

Route and location relative to Bergen

Near the start of the walk from Gullbotn

Looking east to Samnangerfjord

Following the large cairns to the top of Gullfjelltoppen

The steep western slope of Gullfjelltoppen with lake Svartavatn at the bottom

With all the snow on the top the temperature is only just above 5°C

Still a fair bit of snow and ice around on Gullfjellet

Redningshytta

The idyllic Rambjørgvatnet, northeast of Livarden

Venus passage 5-6 June 2012

I have come back to Tromsø for a few days to watch the last Venus passage for more than a hundred years. As the passage happened in the middle of the night here, between midnight and 7 am, Tromsø, with its midnight sun, is the perfect place to watch it. We hiked up to the top of the cable car at Fløya to get a good view of the midnight sun and Tromsø. Quite a few people had the same idea, and there was an impressive collection of telescopes set up on the deck outside the cable car station. We don't have a telescope, but we still got a good view of the sun with sun spots and Venus through our binoculars. Once back home at around 3 am we could see the passage from our upstairs north-facing bedroom.

Taken with a ca 8x zoom on the camera, through an 8x binoculars, with eclipse glasses in between, from our bedroom.

Midnight sun over Tromsø.

View over the southern part of Tromsøya with the mountains on Kvaløya in the distance.

Venus passage watchers on the deck outside the cable car station.

Tony trying to take photos through the binoculars, with eclipse glasses in between.

Double projection of the sun and Venus through the binoculars onto Tony's knee.

Tromsdalstinden basking in the sun behind us.

Starting to walk down at ca 1:30 am.